


Go back whence you came

by marysrose



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mild Gore, Spirits, mild body horror, mild eye horror, only tagged as teen bc of implied injury theres no saucy stuff or swears just injury, red templars r the ones that do the torture fyi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-01 13:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18800959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marysrose/pseuds/marysrose
Summary: He didn't expect to see her that way. He didn't expect to care for her as he did. And he certainly didn't expect her - the invincible inquisitor - to fall.In truth, he didn't expect a lot of things. But now, it seems, it was time for Cullen to face the unexpected, as his lover comes to give him one last dance.





	Go back whence you came

**Author's Note:**

> uuum.. welcome to the angst fest  
> recommended listening: go back whence you came from the witcher 3 hearts of stone soundtrack because that's what inspired this  
> tell me if i missed any warnings, please

A presence materialized behind Cullen.

He needn’t glance behind, knew instantly who it was, _was_ being the fitting word because... Not one week ago, he had buried that same someone beneath their favourite cherry blossom tree.

It was the scent that gave it away. In a heartbeat, the smell of her - of _home_ \- filled his nostrils. Instinct screamed at him to turn around, to embrace her in his arms, but it seems as though they had a telepathic bond as within milliseconds, he felt her dainty hands encircle his weary chest.

For the life of him, he could not look her in the eye. How he longed to relax into her touch, where he always belonged and yet at the same time he was filled with this pulsing urge to recoil, ice pulsing through his veins, freezing his heart solid.

For this was too good to be true - it couldn’t be, could it?

It had been some minutes now. Cullen, frozen in his ice queens arms, face tensed, eyes burning into the ground that had cracked open like a chasm and swallowed him alive when he saw her mangled form for the first time, how he clung to her marred body where lyrium shards reigned rampant, how his lions mane slicked with sweat as he held her fading hand in his and prayed to all the gods above that his queen make it out unscathed.

...Prayers unheeded.

Eternal. Silence. Ashen hand explores sunken face, eliciting a flinch as eyes desperately search for anything to look at but his greatest failure. The two lovers remain submerged in a blanket of mute tenderness, no words required, no words they could possibly piece together to explain what each of them were feeling in this moment, crystallized in time.

Wordlessly, he brings his queens hand to trembling lips and presses the most heartbroken kiss to hands with fingernails of speckled scarlet. And that is where his lips linger, eyes squeezed tight, appendages shaking, never to pull away again.

Eternities pass.

The lovers remain.

“Look at me” -- the arrow that pierces the flight of the angels -- “Look at me, Cullen.” She turns his head to face her piercing gaze, a weak smile twinging at bloodied lips. Ex templar's eyes widen, bigger than the ghostly moon that illuminates his soulmate, slain.

Anguish crashes in waves across his face, hands rushing to cover his mouth, salt stinging at his windows to the soul. His gaze plummets back down to the floor, _can’t look at what I’ve done to her, shan’t look at what I’ve done to her---_

Icy touch tingling at his fingertips, pulling them towards the satin-strung silver around her neck. For the first time, he looks at her --  _truly_ looks at her -- face of stormy seas. He doesn’t release his hold on the charm.

Everything. There is.. Everything before him, he doesn’t know where to start, the tally of the wrongs to his lover notching up and up as he examines each blow he failed to block, each scar he did not stop, each cut he did not curb.

“It’s okay… She doesn’t blame you, Cullen.”

His head hangs low.

“...Shall we dance, commander? For old times sake. I have not held this form for long, but, I sense one of her fondest memories involved a dance in the depths of the night…”

...And so they danced, bathed in the rays of the pale moonlight. The dance to the death of us all, the broken lions face falling every time his fingers brushed past the cool crystals that littered his beloved's body, every time he caught sight of the halo of lyrium shards that dripped with vermilion down her scathed face.

After centuries, her sightless eye settles on him, the one not obscured by a fragment of lyrium true. Her tattered ballgown sways slightly on the breeze, ringlets water-falling down from the bun at her head.

“Incindia…” He speaks to her, for the first time… And the last.

Something reminiscent of pity tinges in her jasper features, before she looks to her dirtied feet and says…

“..I’m not real, am I?””

A silent nod.

“...Does it matter?” Cullen questions, running his hand through his hair.

The pitied look returns. She advances towards him -- but his arms raise up, denying her embrace.

“The veil is a masquerade, and this vessel my harlequin mask. I don’t remember this woman, Cullen. All I know is that there’s this pulsating ache in my heart screaming at me a million emotions and I… She’s not giving up on you, is she?”

“She never did.” He smiles to the floor, fiddling with his cuff.

“Then that is why you must give up on her. She has to be set free - **_I_ **have to be set free. I don’t want to play this game anymore, my mask is falling, the fade is calling…” A woman with the weariness of the world cups his face, fingertips tracing his cheek.

For a second, he stares at her lips, before turning to the balcony.

“Dorian told me.. Told me this might happen. He said… He said that sometimes, spirits can have such strong feelings or connections that they bind themselves to an item, a valuable, something important to them.”

Images of the good luck charm he so cherished flashed through his head, how Ina’s ears perked and her face lit up as she examined the coin before her, following the grooves with her thumb.

He knew what had to be done.

“I could do it.” The wearer of Incindia’s face says, reaching to the charm on her neck.

“..No. It has to be me. I created the bond, I have to sever it.”

Together, they unclasp the choker, the coin secured to it cool to the touch. **Together** , they approach the fire pit crackling in the corner.

Alone, Cullen drops the coin into the flames.

 **Alone** , a warrior mourns his wife as the coin he once gave her melts, the face on it morphing, shaping, mouth contorting as if screaming, as if it too was in mourning. 

Throughout Thedas, nothing can be heard but a broken warriors sobs.

**Author's Note:**

> sgsgddh i know the coin melting probably isn't ~scientifically accurate~ but let me be emo okay, don't be whipping out ya'll "melting points of orlais coins" guide book ok
> 
> also for context i imagine red templars had a hand in her death, cullen himself has nothing to do with it but he feels guilty that he couldn't save her


End file.
